Bye bye Broadway’s Spidey: The biggest, most expensive musical in history departs for Vegas but leaves a few lessons and leaps of faith behind

Spider-Man is about to make his last flying leap on Broadway.
The super-heroic but adorably awkward teenager will cast his last web Saturday Jan. 4 when
Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark plays its final performance after more than two years at New
York’s Foxwoods Theatre.
I guess the Green Goblin finally is getting his revenge. Or maybe it's the critics. Or
perhaps it was the divisive creative team, about which another musical (a la
All About Eve) might someday be written.
Whatever:
Turn Off... is now about to be turned off.

Caption: Spider-Man stands on the Brooklyn Bridge while the Green Goblin enters in a
scene from the musical
Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark. Credit: Sara Krulwich

The beleaguered, much-delayed production began previews in November 2010
but didn’t open until mid-June of 2011 - the longest run of previews in Broadway history.
The soaring spectacle was rightfully nominated for Tony awards for its scenic and costume
design, but otherwise was overlooked – when it wasn’t being reviled by critics.
The amazing Cirque-du-Soleil-style spectacle generated by original director Julie Taymor
(The Lion King) and the creative team that replaced her half-way through previews – or as
she might still feel, stabbed her in the back – largely was overshadowed by the amazing and
appalling backstage story about all the problems and delays and accidents that made this Broadway
show one of the most newsworthy of the past generation.
Yet, running more than 1,060 performances over four years (counting previews, and I mean
really counting the weeks and months of unprecedented previews) isn’t something that even the Green
Goblin would sniff at.
Almost always, any Broadway show that reaches 1,000 performances – and only a small
percentage of shows ever do – is recognized and usually respected as a popular hit that’s stood the
most immediate test of time in terms of box-office sales.
But with a reported record Broadway budget of over $70 million – of which easily more than
half could be seen onstage in garish spectacle that King Midas might envy –
Spider-Man rarely broke even and ended up losing quite a bit.
You know what the superhero always says: With great budgets come great susceptibility – to
criticism. (Or something like that.)

Yet, even with the responsibility for the misfire fairly assigned, the
musical wasn't the awful mess that some reviews suggested.
When I finally caught up with it, I was pleasantly surprised by its broad family appeal.
While the mostly recycled story is pretty derivative and the characters often comic-book
thin, several action scenes generate suspense and a few musical numbers are entertaining.
Don’t get me wrong: I don’t consider
Spider-Man a topnotch musical or anywhere close. In fact, if I were grading it, I might
have given it an overall C or B-minus. But a few of its elements approached A-plus, and those
shouldn't be forgotten.
First and most obviously, the soaring staging and garish comic-book design are strikingly
effective.
Classic rock songwriters Bono and The Edge made their Broadway debut with an authentic rock
score that didn’t always track as musical theater but sometimes fulfilled expectations for just
strong melodies with a driving beat.
Bono and The Edge even produced a few songs that are actually pretty good – and even loosely
advance character and plot.

Above all,
Spider-Man worked for more than three years on Broadway as one of the most successful
family musicals – especially attractive to boys who idolize comic-book heroes.
At the performance I attended, children were transfixed by the spectacle and loved the way
Spider-Man (and a villain) could fly around and through the large theater.
I noticed several boys actually dressed as Spider-Man. I mean, they were into it!
This may not be much of an endorsement, compared to truly great musicals, but
Spider-Man offered something that shouldn't be dismissed too quickly: A good way to
introduce young people, especially boys, to the galvanizing power of a big Broadway musical.
Like
Cats, the Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice feline fantasy that prowled through the 1980s
as the biggest blockbuster on Broadway,
Spider-Man was attacked fiercely for its weaknesses as a book musical when in fact its
strengths lay elsewhere – in gosh-wow spectacle and boyish family appeal.
There's always a place for that in entertainment and on Broadway, or at least there should
be.

In fact, for about two years and for more than 1,000 performances, there
was.
Now the producers are calling it quits, while saving face with talk of taking the show
(perhaps revised and shortened) to Las Vegas.
So here’s my fondly ambivalent farewell.

The critics virtually buried Taymor in their withering criticism, though
many collaborators also got their fair share of blame. But I come to (partly) praise, not bury her.
After being crowned Broadway's most visionary director because of her amazing work in
the mid-1990s directing, co-creating and co-designing
The Lion King – still Broadway's reigning king of the box office – Taymor deserves some
credit and appreciation for her vision.
Spider-Man may well go down in history as Julie's Folly.
Certainly, at this point, the musical is pretty much dismissed as Taymor's White Whale – the
show that sank her Broadway career.
(Who will ever hire her again? I know: Someone with the vision to take a chance on a
visionary.)

Yet, even in retrospect, what Taymor tried to do with
Spider-Man was valiant: Bring Broadway into the 21st century by incorporating the
innovative staging techniques of Cirque du Soleil's best shows in Las Vegas
Even if the final results fell short of her or others expectations, Taymor had the right
hunch about what Broadway needed: Something new, bigger and more mythic than what normally fits
into the straight-jacketed confines of cramped Broadway theaters with their old-fashioned, outdated
and highly expensive cost structure.
Vegas has been so innovative partly because it’s free of such financial constraints and
geographic inhibitions. There, people can think big. And in that wide-open desert metropolis, where
Cirque du Soleil has invested more than $100 million each in gigantic show after long-running show,
nobody would blink at a mere $70 million budget.
Personally, I hope this boundary-stretching musical gets a second life in Vegas, which always
has seemed like its natural and inevitable home.
Farewell, Spidey!
See you in Sin City!